The holidays are right around the corner. Halloween kicks things off with Thanksgiving and Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza close behind. I’ve always viewed this time of year as a special opportunity to let everyone who’s a part of my life know how much I love and appreciate them. I wish I still had living parents. I always sent them cards and called them. We’d often make the trek to Seattle or Missoula to spend holidays with Bob’s family or my own.
Halloween originated with the Celts (Ireland, UK, and parts of France) over 2000 years ago. It was called Samhain and represented the demarcation between the dark and light halves of the year. The veils between the worlds thinned then, and people would carve likenesses of departed relatives they hoped to see during this time. Turnips were often chosen for these carvings. Of course, spirits can be rowdy. The Druids believed so many of them roaming free helped with prophecies for the coming year. Fortune telling loomed large at Samhain festivals.
One of many Samhain rituals was every villager extinguished their hearth fire before joining the festivities where crops and animals were sacrificed in the interest of blessings for the year to come. Once the festivities were over, each family would bring a bit of the common fire back to their homes to relight their hearths. It symbolized unity. Our long-ago ancestors recognized they needed one another to survive.
When it comes right down to it, life is an incredible gift. None of us have a crystal ball, so we don’t really have any idea how much time we’ll have in this life. The only hedge against that particular unknown is to borrow a concept from Eastern philosophy: Live as though death sat on your shoulder.
What that means is to not blindly assume we’ll have time to say we’re sorry or to make up for being rude or intolerant or nasty. Whenever someone bothers me, I try to look through their eyes. I can almost always find compassion for who they are. That’s become increasingly important as my writing has reached a wider audience. Amongst the group, there are always naysayers.
While I may feel sad my writing didn’t resonate for them, nowhere in my wildest expectations did I think everyone who read my fiction would like it. After all, I wasn’t the right psychologist for everyone. How could I be? The same goes for writing.
How about you. Who’s special to you? When’s the last time you told them how much you cared? This next question is harder. If you could go back and undo something, what would it be? It’s not as difficult as all that, unless the person’s no longer on this side of the veil. Even then, there are ways to reach through to the spirit world.
It’s a tough life lesson, but pride never buys much. Neither does insisting on being “right.” The problem with being right is it means someone else is wrong and the relationship with them suffers. Time is a valuable commodity. None of us lives forever. I don’t know about you, but when I’m a very old woman looking back on my life, I’d rather not examine a lot of things I feel bad about not doing.
So, how about it? Who will you say, “I love you,” to through the holiday season? Down deep, we’re all the same. We all want to be loved, valued, and appreciated.
Note: I have an infinite number of photographs from my time traipsing around the world, so most of the pictures with my blog posts originated from the wilderness areas of the world. When I was young and, ahem, stronger, I used to schlepp a digital DSLR set up with a couple of lenses in my backpack. That’s been pared down to a Sony mirrorless at less that half the weight. It doesn’t take quite as sharp images, but they’re “good enough.”